Berwick Area MS

Berwick Area MS is a mid-sized junior high in Berwick, Pennsylvania, run under Berwick Area SD. The school instructs 837 students in grades 5 through 8. That puts it 41% bigger than the typical public school in Pennsylvania, which averages around 594 students.

Berwick Area SD comprises 5 schools with combined enrollment of 2,706 students; Berwick Area MS is among them.

On demographics, Berwick Area MS shows that White students make up the majority at 79%. Beyond that, the school lists 14% Hispanic, 4% Black, 3% multiracial. That composition is broadly in line with Luzerne County as a whole.

On the resource side, On paper, Berwick Area MS has 66 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 12.7:1. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 104% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. That share is noticeably above Luzerne County's rate of about 85%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Berwick Area MS performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 32.9%, the actual is 41.7%, a residual of +8.8 points.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Luzerne County indicate the typical household earns roughly $63,691 per year, 25% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 11%. Across Luzerne County's 65 public schools (combined enrollment of about 45,209 students), Berwick Area MS is one campus in the mix.

Berwick Area HS is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.1 miles from this campus. 4 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Berwick Area MS at 8th of 9; the average score across the group is 58.2%.

The campus sits in a town-based setting.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Berwick Area MS has shrank 12%, going from 953 students in 2018 to 837 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 90% to 79% across the same window. Class-load math has fell: from 14.7:1 in 2018 to 12.7:1 in 2025.

On the community side, recent activity here tends to focus on sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.